June 26, 1863, The New York Herald
We have some additional facts, and a superabundant supply of rumors and conjectures, regarding the movements and designs of the rebel army of Virginia. In other words, a bushel of chaff has accumulated upon our hands since yesterday morning, and we desire to ascertain, as far as possible, how much wheat there is in it.
First we have the report that on Friday last Generals Lee and Longstreet were at Winchester with one hundred thousand men. Now we remember that last August, when Gen. Pope, with his small army, was retreating before the overwhelming columns of Lee, the whole of the forces under Lee’s command were estimated by United States army officers to be hardly less in the aggregate than three hundred thousand men. We know, too, that this enormous army dwindled down at Antietam to less than seventy-five thousand. Accordingly, we doubt whether the present army of Lee, which is guessed to be from a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five thousand strong, can in reality muster more than fifty or sixty– say sixty-thousand men. This is the army that General Hooker has to deal with. We cannot believe that with anything near a hundred thousand men Lee would have stolen away from the Rappahannock over the Blue Ridge chain of mountains. On the contrary, turning sharply upon the flank of General Hooker, which he had the opportunity to do, Lee would have compelled him to fight somewhere on the direct road between Culpepper and Washington, to secure his communications with the capital, and to secure the capital itself. Lee, in a word, knows that his army is inferior to our opposing army in every sense, or he would not have gone a hundred and fifty miles out of his way to find General Hooker.
Next we are told from Frederick, Md., that it is [….] believed” that the greater part of Lee’s army crossed over the Potomac since Friday, […..] at Antietam, Shepherdstown and Williamsport.” We, however, demand more satisfactory evidence than the general belief. Grant that General Rhodes’ division of ten thousand men left Hagerstown on Tuesday for Chambersburg, and that General Johnston rebel division, twelve thousand strong, crossed over at Shepherdstown on Sunday, these movements may be explained as mere diversions to deceive General Hooker, and as supports to those immense trains of army wagons seen passing northward through Hagerstown. Those wagons were sent out to gather up provisions, shoes, clothing, &c., for Lee’s main army in the Shenandoah valley. Virginia having been eaten out, he is simply making the best use of his time to forage upon Maryland and Pennsylvania while manoeuvring to draw to and divide the army of General Hooker.
We have no idea that General Lee meditates an advance upon either Harrisburg or Baltimore. In the one case the trip would not pay expenses, as the broad, rocky Susquehanna river is in his way; and, in the other case, his army in getting into Baltimore would get into a trap from which Lee would never extricate it, with General Hooker’s army and our militia auxiliaries behind him, and with no means of retreat at his command over the broad, navigable Lower Potomac. Between Governor Curtin and the Governor of Maryland, with the eight or ten thousand of our New York State militia sent forward, one would think there would be no difficulty now in advancing to the Maryland border a body of fifty thousand men. This force would protect the border from further foraging incursions, or compel General Lee to bring up his reserves; and in this event the Army of the Potomac would be able to repeat the battle of Antietam under greater advantages than were possessed by General McClellan, including our present possession of the commanding heights of Harper’s Ferry and the river front below, where Lee last year entered Maryland.
Last September, after driving Pope’s shattered columns behind the defences of Arlington Heights, Lee deliberately took up his line of march and entered Maryland forty miles above Washington. His march by this short route could not be resisted; for McClellan, from the remains of his own army of the Richmond peninsula, and from the fragments of Pope’s army, and from our new levies of volunteers, hurried forward, had first to build up and organize a new army before he could move from the capital. Now General Hooker commands the Potomac between the capital and Harper’s Ferry, and has an army of veteran soldiers so situated on his interior lines that with even ordinary vigilance and activity he can meet and defeat any offensive movement of the enemy in any direction.
A very few days will determine the issue to Lee of this aggressive campaign. If informed from Richmond of the fall of Vicksburg in advance of a battle with General Hooker, there will be an immediate necessity for the movement of at least one-half of this rebel army of Virginia to the protection of the flank of Alabama and Georgia against the formidable liberated army of General Grant. Meantime, if the report be true that D. H. Hill’s corps has been left behind to take care of Richmond and the communications between it and Gordonsville, we may begin to doubt whether this Northern campaign of Lee amounts to anything more than a scare, an indispensable movement for supplies, and a grand foraging expedition into the loyal border States.